


lift up your head break down the walls (don't stop pushing til they fall)

by CoffeeAndArrows, moonlitprincess



Series: when you figure out (love is all that matters after all) [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, basically daniel finds out about daisy's Tragic Life Story, kinda mild angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:05:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27170126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeAndArrows/pseuds/CoffeeAndArrows, https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlitprincess/pseuds/moonlitprincess
Summary: 'Daisy hadn't intended on telling Sousa her life story tonight. She wasn’t sure when she did intend on telling it to him, but she supposed now was as good a time as ever. She’d forgotten, in how quickly she’d grown to trust him and all the chaos that had surrounded him ending up in the 21st century, how little he actually knew about her.  It had been a long time since she’d laid this all out to anyone, and she knew it wouldn’t be on the table for discussion if she wasn’t sitting here, staring at her entire life in documents and data, attempting to make what would hopefully be the last identity she had to give herself.She just had to give herself the courage to actually make the damn thing first.She sighed softly. Maybe telling Sousa about it would help her bite the bullet."orbasically, sousa finding out about daisy's life before she was daisy.
Relationships: Leo Fitz & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Series: when you figure out (love is all that matters after all) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885618
Comments: 7
Kudos: 129





	lift up your head break down the walls (don't stop pushing til they fall)

**Author's Note:**

> hello! 
> 
> completely unsurprisingly, aos s7 still owns us in absolutely every way so we are back again for another one-shot in the love is all that matters series :-) 
> 
> as always, these absolutely can be read as stand-alones, but they all somewhat connect to the other one-shots in the series so feel free to give those a little read X this fic is a bit messy and all over the place and I have no idea how well it flows but we hope you enjoy it regardless!! sending love to all of u guys and hoping ur staying safe through everything going on. 
> 
> p.s. - chapter title is from beauty in the light by hollow coves

Evenings had become Daniel Sousa’s favourite time of day. 

It was incredibly unexpected, because he’d always been a morning person. He was a nature-loving kid and loved getting up as soon as the sun peeked through his curtains. He’d wolf down his breakfast as fast as possible, jump onto his bicycle and spend the day riding across the streets of his neighbourhood in Twin Falls, through the numerous parks and along the Snake River as the sun climbed higher into the sky. During the war, the dark was dangerous. You could disappear and nobody would notice. You wouldn’t see a streaking bullet coming towards you, or a knife flash in front of your face. Morning was always a relief. 

_ After  _ the war, mornings were the bittersweet promise of peace, of being alive despite everything, and as Sousa would watch light creep up from the horizon, he’d hold his mug of coffee just a little tighter and adamantly ignore the phantom ache where his left leg no longer was, hoping that one day, the sun would rise and the day would begin and he wouldn’t still feel like he was stuck in yesterday. That time came eventually - with Peggy, with the SSR, with SHIELD. Mornings held promise and purpose - yes, that purpose meant that there were still battles to fight, but it reminded Sousa of the things worth fighting  _ for _ and for that he was grateful. 

At the Lighthouse, their days were blurred. 

Sousa knew he had a great excuse for not managing to drag himself out of bed at 6am like he’d once routinely done - hell, he was now living 70 years past his supposed-to-be death after having saved the world from futuristic space robots. That was definitely reason enough to have your whole sense of life thrown out of whack. But in all honesty, he’d kind of processed everything they’d done and been through without too much trouble. It was the  _ now  _ stuff that was tripping him up; the living in 2020 with flat screen TV’s and phones that were touch operated and were the size of your hand, and computers that were portable and notebook-sized, a database that contained records of basically anything that ever existed and could connect you to people across the world in an instant, clothes that were so much brighter and smaller with so much more skin showing, sleeker cars, faster transport, a louder, quicker, shinier, more overwhelming world than Sousa ever could’ve imagined. 

Sometimes, it all made his head spin so much that the idea of stepping out into that world was far too suffocating and the cool, dark, stone walls of the Lighthouse and the calm familiarity of a military-type base was a huge relief. Sousa never would’ve imagined that he’d not mind seeing the sun first thing in the morning, to be able to breathe in the fresh air and sit and soak up the possibility of a new day, but the idea of that right now felt too expectant, as though there were a million things he had to learn and discover and make sense of in this new world he now lived in and he could barely wrap his head around the apparent  _ basics  _ of this century. It seemed, too, that he wasn’t the only one who’d grown to prefer the slowness of these days without routine or expectation. For all the insanity of what he’d experienced with the SHIELD team, he was well aware that they’d been doing this for far longer, and he suspected there’d been several more high stakes missions and fights and near-apocalypses before this one, and it seemed like now was the first real chance they’d had to  _ breathe  _ in a very long time. 

Of course, they were all agents, and  _ that _ wasn’t as easy to just snap out of. Sousa knew that Daisy still woke up at 5am to train with May every morning, and there was no doubt that Fitzsimmons were awoken by their energetic, excitable three and a half year old early enough that Jemma was in the kitchen sorting breakfast for Alya by 7:30am, and Coulson, of course, didn’t sleep, and Mack and Yoyo quickly joined in on May and Daisy’s training routine most days. But the rest of the day unfolded without structure and it suited them all just fine. 

On the days he could deal with it, Mack and Coulson helped Sousa make sense of the last 70 years of human history that he’d skipped through. On the days that was just far too much, Sousa was incredibly thankful for the mountains of admin work that all the insane SHIELD endeavours through time and space had created. According to Mack, SHIELD had had to retreat to the shadows several times over the last 7 years, and their team hadn’t been on earth and in the 21st century long enough over the past couple years to properly rebuild since the last time the organisation had come crumbling down. Having been around when SHIELD had been founded for the first time, Sousa had to admit, it was nice to be useful somehow. 

Evenings thus became the one time of the day that without fail, Sousa found it easy to step outside and breathe and not feel as though everything he didn’t know or didn’t understand or the fact that everybody he knew was  _ dead  _ didn’t weigh heavy on his shoulders. The entire world slowed down and the sky became a vibrant, peach and lavender coloured glow, glittering over the water that crashed onto the rocky shore that surrounded the Lighthouse. The house beside, and the lighthouse  _ above  _ The Lighthouse Base was also SHIELD owned, and Sousa had taken to climbing the steps to the top - a feat he could still barely believe he could actually  _ do  _ \- and sitting on the windowsill there, watching the lake and feeling comforted in the fact that even though the days were wildly different from 70 years ago, they always ended the same way - quiet and muted and beautiful and calm. 

* * *

Today had been stormy. 

Not that Daisy had  _ seen  _ it - she hadn’t stepped foot outside in days - but she’d heard the rain, even from their underground base, she’d heard the rumble of thunder, laughed at Piper when she came back into the Lighthouse soaked when she’d tried to duck out just for a couple hours to do some repairs on the Quinjet. Best of all though, Daisy had felt something bright and warm and endless spread through her chest when Alya raced into the living room, also drenched but with the widest smile on her face, before her parents followed her in. 

“Did I miss the rain dance or something?” asked Daisy, gesturing to Fitz’s hair, flat against his head and his wet shirt and Jemma, who was grimacing as she tugged off wet shoes. 

“It feels so  _ funny _ !” exclaimed Alya, tugging Daisy’s arm. “I caught it with my tongue, see!” She stuck out her tongue as though the raindrops would still be sitting right there, her eyes sparkling excitably. 

“Little monkey’s never seen rain,” explained Fitz, walking over to ruffle Alya’s hair. “Promised her months ago that as soon as we were back on earth, we’d take her out on the first rainy day.” He squeezed Alya’s shoulders. “Can’t break a promise now, can we?” 

“Nah uh,” said Alya firmly, her tongue still sticking out. 

Daisy let out a soft whoosh of air. “I didn’t even think of that,” she said, glancing over to meet Jemma’s gaze. “No rain. No snow. No sunshine. I mean, it’s not like I can’t imagine it because we spent a year in space but -” 

“It’s different knowing what you’re missing,” Jemma finished and Daisy nodded. 

“At least this way,” she said, reaching forward to tap Alya’s nose, “when she’s older, she might remember the first time she experienced  _ all  _ of this.” 

Fitz smiled, his eyes crinkled and warm and full of adoration as he crouched down and kissed the top of Alya’s head. “That’s what I’m hoping.” 

“Can we go out again?” asked Alya. “Please, please please?” 

“If it’s raining tomorrow then absolutely,” promised Jemma. “Right now, we’re gonna get you into a bath before you learn what your first cold feels like, and I can assure you that you’ll like that a  _ lot  _ less.” 

Daisy and Fitz both laughed while Alya pouted. As Jemma guided the four year old out of the living room, listening to her return to her overjoyed rambling about the rain, Fitz pushed some wet hair off his forehead and glanced over at Daisy. 

“The new identities coming along okay?” he asked. 

“Pretty much everyone is done,” said Daisy with a nod. “Did you have a look over Alya’s? Does everything line up?” 

“It’s perfect,” said Fitz. “Thank you. We never would’ve known how to do this ourselves.” 

Daisy shrugged. “It’s second nature,” she said. “Nice to do something I’m good at that  _ isn’t  _ beating people up for a change.” 

Fitz chuckled. “So who’s left?” 

Daisy hesitated for a second, her fingers hovering over the keyboard of her laptop as her gaze flickered down to the last folder on the computer that she had yet to open. It was unnamed. On an encrypted data chip. She’d disconnected the laptop from all servers - there was no way any of the information was accessible to anyone other than her, and she planned to wipe this laptop once she was done with it. Despite all her security measures, the idea of opening the folder for the first time in 7 years made her heart rate quicken with panic. 

“Just me,” she said so quietly she wasn’t sure Fitz could hear her. She knew he had though because his expression was soft when she forced her gaze back to him. 

“You don’t have to rush it,” he reminded her gently, and it eased the tight knot in Daisy’s chest that had settled in since she’d finished the last I.D. and realised she now had to start her own - had to  _ exist  _ on paper, in the system, for the first time in over a decade. 

“I’ll need it eventually,” she said, curling her fingers around the edge of her laptop. “Maybe sooner than eventually, if what happened with Flint is any indicator.” 

“You’ve got time,” said Fitz. “Don’t push yourself, yeah?” 

Daisy wished her was closer so she could toss a cushion at him. “Don’t use your  _ dad voice  _ on me Fitz,” she teased. 

Fitz laughed, wrinkling his nose. “Can’t help it,” he said apologetically, making her laugh too. "I can check up on you later too if you want," he teased, a hint of sincerity slipping into his voice. He suddenly sounded like the concerned brother figure Daisy had had years ago, before…  _ before _ . 

A sudden chill crept down Daisy’s spine and she forced her gaze back to her laptop. These last few weeks had been the first long stretch of time that Daisy had had without a burden to help or save or rescue or protect - without a  _ mission _ \- and she’d realised that she had a  _ lot  _ of things she’d used missions to avoid thinking about. One of them absolutely being what had happened with Fitz - the old Fitz, the one who’d died - at the Lighthouse during the end of the world loop. 

But this Fitz, the one standing in front of her with greys in the hair behind his ears and a beautiful daughter he loved more than anything - he hadn’t done that to her and Daisy knew that. But it was still his face she saw in her nightmares, his voice slipping into Leopold’s cold, unforgiving sneer. And the worst part was that Daisy didn’t even know if this Fitz  _ knew  _ because they’d never had the chance to talk about it, and now it had been  _ four years  _ for him away from them all and every time it occurred to Daisy to ask, her throat tightened and panic washed over her and the words froze on her tongue. Except now it was all she could think about, even though everything about being around Fitz these last few weeks had felt normal, felt like it used to, like pranks and banter and tubs of ice cream at absurd hours of the night while waiting for others to come back from missions. 

_ It wasn’t him _ , Daisy thought, trying to force the unforgiving memories out of her head before looking up at Fitz again.  _ And now’s not the time to talk about it.  _

Fitz moved as though to go find Jemma and Alya, still a little uneasy about spending too much time away from them after everything that had happened, but he paused for a second before leaving, his smile fading into something a little more serious. There was clearly something he wanted to say, but wasn't sure how to. Daisy tilted her head slightly, withdrawing her hands from her keyboard.

“What?” she asked, a little hesitantly. Whatever it was, there was no way it was about  _ this _ , no way he would  _ know  _ \- 

"My new identity,” said Fitz. “I - I had a question about it.” 

“Did I get any of the details wrong?” asked Daisy, fingers immediately flying over her keyboard to pull up the new documents she’d put together for him. 

“No, no - it wasn’t that.” Fitz bit his lip, fiddling with the ends of his cardigan in a way that was so reminiscent of the young, shy scientist Daisy remembered meeting all those years ago that it made her chest ache. Fitz let out a slow exhale before softly saying, “You changed my name to Leo on purpose, didn’t you?” 

She didn't look at him. She  _ couldn't _ , because he was edging towards them actually having to  _ talk _ about all this and that familiar panic was settling deep in the pit of her stomach and she wasn't ready to find out what or how much he knew, or worse, what he still didn't. 

He was right, of course. She’d done it mostly because she knew how much he despised the reminder of his father and of who he had been in the Framework, and so she had taken the opportunity to ease a little of that pain for him. He’d never been  _ that _ , not really. While beneath one of the most brilliant brains of SHIELD, beneath Agent Simmons, there had always been  _ Jemma _ , there was never  _ Leopold  _ under Fitz. He was always  _ just  _ Fitz. 

In truth though, Daisy knew far too well that selfishly, she’d made the slight adjustment for herself too. Reading  _ Leopold Fitz _ over and over on old documents, on SHIELD’s academy personnel file for him, on mission logs and reports, his birth certificate, school records, all of it, seeing  _ Leopold, Leopold, Leopold _ had made her stomach turn, the cold press of a scalpel against her neck and the icy - distinctly  _ not Fitz  _ \- look in The Doctor's eyes and his terrifying indifference to her pleading all too clear in her mind. This Fitz wasn't the version of Fitz who had done those things to her, and she'd needed a way to distinguish between them.

Daisy sucked in a sharp, stuttering breath and forced herself to meet his eyes. Relief broke free like a dam in her chest. Fitz’s expression was pure, overwhelming gratitude and love. He got it. And she could tell that he didn’t want to start this conversation, same as her - not yet - and that none of the unsaid things hanging between them needed to be talked about right now.

"Thank you," Fitz said softly, sincerely. 

Daisy swallowed and then nodded. Her eyes burned but she couldn’t help but give him the smallest smile. “I’m glad you’re home Fitz.”

  
  


* * *

Not being able to watch the sunset because of the rain had kinda thrown Sousa more than a little. 

He didn’t  _ mind  _ not having a routine, especially right now, but it had been nice to have one thing to stick to, one reliable constant, even if it was something as tiny as sitting on a windowsill and watching the sun descend below the horizon over the seemingly endless lake in front of them. 

Today though, it was dark by 4pm, the ominous grey storm clouds that had been brewing all morning finally rolling in without delay as the evening set in. Sousa sighed. He felt lost today. Completely and utterly out of time, away from everything that was familiar and uncomfortable in his skin and clothes and  _ everything.  _ He ran his jittery fingers through his hair as he turned towards the hallway leading down to the Lighthouse common area. He hadn’t really been in the mood to socialise all day (and had used to excuse that he wanted to do some  _ 21st century reading _ to get out of the various odd jobs people were working on), but with his usual evening routine lost in the storm, he hoped maybe there would be somebody that could offer him some kind of solitary but purposeful job. 

Nobody was there, except Daisy. 

He smiled without even really meaning to. 

She was curled up in the corner of one of the dark brown leather couches, looking incredibly cute in very baggy trousers (he was pretty sure she’d told him they were called sweatpants) and a loose t-shirt, hair bundled on top of her head and a pair of round, metal-framed glasses perched on her nose. (He also remembered their conversation about those.) 

( _ “Hey, I didn’t know you wore glasses.”  _

_ “What? Oh, I don’t.”  _

_ “Then why are you - ?”  _

_ “Oh these! They’re blue light glasses.”  _

_ “They … make everything look blue?”  _

_ “Oh my god,  _ **_no_ ** _! They’re for like, screens. On devices, like phones and laptops. The blue light in them can damage your eyes so you’re supposed to put like, yellow light filters on your screens or wear glasses like this.”  _

_ “Is this one of those moments when I should pretend to know what you’re talking about?”  _

_ “You’ll get it when I show you, grandpa.” _ ) 

Sousa tapped lightly on the door to knock, offering Daisy a small smile when her head snapped up as she startled just slightly. “Hey,” he said. 

“Hi!” She returned his smile. “Haven’t seen you all day.” 

Sousa hesitated, considering finding an excuse to give for his absence, but deciding against it because this was Daisy, and there was something about her that persuaded him to open up every time he was around her. That urge was multiplied now by the dim lighting and comfortable atmosphere and the gentle hints of concern in Daisy's expression. "It's been a weird day," he admitted, watching her eyebrows curve down as her concern increased. 

"Weird how?" she asked.

Sousa sighed. "Some days the twenty-first century feels normal, you know? Like I could fit in here. Other days, like today, I find myself not knowing who I am or where to go or what to do with myself. I actually… I came in here looking for a distraction."

This time it was Daisy's turn to shift uncomfortably in her seat, ever so slightly, just enough that Sousa might not have noticed the gesture had he not spent so much time with her in the last few weeks. Her eyes flickered down to her laptop screen but darted back to him when he quietly asked "Mind if I join you?"

She looked like she could use a distraction too.

Daisy’s lips curled up into a soft smile, confirming that suspicion. She moved her legs off the couch, instead propping her feet up on the coffee table, leaving Sousa space to come sit next to her. When he did, he felt her lean her shoulder against his, the comforting weight of her body pressing against his grounding him, tethering him to this time and place in a way he’d been subconsciously searching for all day. She was warm and solid and reassuring. And uncharacteristically quiet, he now noticed. Her gaze had once again returned to her laptop, the copies of (largely redacted) scanned documents that covered the screen holding her attention, and not in a good way either. She seemed as lost as he had been feeling earlier, her thumb and first finger hovering awkwardly over the keypad but not moving, not knowing what to do.

Sousa nudged her knee lightly with his own, choosing to focus on her rather than on whatever it was she was looking at. He’d been looking for something to take his mind off of things, and, well, she was… distracting. (Not like that. Well, she  _ was  _ but he was more than capable of being incredibly attracted to her and be there for her in a completely platonic way if she needed it.) It was the slight heaviness to her posture that caught his attention this time, followed quickly by the hesitance in her movements and the weight she was carrying on her shoulders, despite how comfortable and at ease she had seemed at first glance. She was good at that - pretending to be okay. 

Daisy took a shaky breath, clenching her fingers into a fist and then releasing them again, making no move to do anything with the files she still had open. Sousa found himself reaching out, gently pulling Daisy’s hand back from her keyboard and slipping his fingers in between hers to let her fiddle with them, her thumb running over his skin, her aches and bruises and the fractures she’d gained from fighting Nathaniel mostly healed by now, at least on the surface. 

“What is all this?” Sousa asked softly, and Daisy’s thumb stilled. There was a long pause.

Daisy swallowed, and when she finally spoke her words were small, as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to admit them out loud. “It’s… me.”

Sousa frowned at the documents, not hiding his confusion. She must have finally reached the point where she was building her own identity after spending the last few days putting together everyone else’s, but he didn’t see how anything she was looking at currently could be useful. The first document was close to illegible, so heavily redacted that it would be impossible to piece together any useful information, and he was willing to bet the documents peeking out from behind were similar. 

“All this… it’s the reason I joined SHIELD.” Daisy smiled wryly, and it struck Sousa, suddenly, how much he didn’t know about her. Time travel had well and truly messed with his understanding of time, but by any measure they had only known each other for the smallest fraction of both of their lives, and stuff like this - how she ended up working with SHIELD, who she was before - had been skipped over in favour of saving the world. Daisy bit her lower lip, uncertain. “I can’t remember what I told you before - when my mother was here.”

“Not much,” Sousa said quietly, and Daisy seemed relieved. “Just that she wasn’t around as a kid, and when you did meet her… it didn’t go the way you wanted it to.”

Daisy nodded, balancing her laptop on one leg so she could pull the other up to her chest, glancing back down at her screen one last time and then clicking a few times on options he didn’t follow. She ejected something from the side of the laptop and placed it in his hand. “It’s a microchip,” she explained when he shot her a confused look, making neither head nor tail of the plastic square resting on his palm. “It’s used to store data, files, that kinda thing. Weirdly enough, I think it’s the possession I’ve had for the longest. It’s where I’ve always kept a record of these papers, because I was never sure where I would move to or what I’d be able to take with me.”

Sousa turned the chip over, noting the brand name and serial number marked in miniscule faded print on the back, and then passed it back to Daisy. She placed it back into the slot she’d taken it from. 

“I’ve wiped my data, hacked any records of me from any database, and built an entirely new identity before,” she said, avoiding his eyes. It seemed like an odd place to start the story, but Sousa gave her hand a small squeeze and listened intently. 

Daisy hadn't intended on telling Sousa her life story tonight. She wasn’t sure when she  _ did  _ intend on telling it to him, but she supposed now was as good a time as ever. She’d forgotten, in how quickly she’d grown to trust him and all the chaos that had surrounded him ending up in the 21st century, how little he actually knew about her. It had been a long time since she’d laid this all out to anyone, and she knew it wouldn’t be on the table for discussion if she wasn’t sitting here, staring at her entire life in documents and data, attempting to make what would hopefully be the last identity she had to give herself. 

She just had to give herself the courage to actually  _ make  _ the damn thing first. 

She sighed softly. Maybe telling Sousa about it would help her bite the bullet. 

“It didn’t matter,” Daisy continued, “cos at the time, it didn't feel like it was  _ my _ identity anyway. It was an identity the orphanage I was left on the doorstep of as a baby gave me, just an awful name and list of behavioral write ups from foster homes that sent me back and online copies of my medical and school records. I wanted to be someone else, so after I left, I wiped it all. And then I spent years trying to piece together the truth, trying to find any real information that happened to be out there.”

“So… this chip, it holds the documents you found? Family records?”

She shook her head, tilting the screen towards him so he could see a little better. “Not exactly. You’d think I’d have more to show after the years I spent searching, but this is all I ended up with.” She bit her lip, her grip on Sousa’s hand tightening just incrementally. “I was a SHIELD 0-8-4.” she said in a rush, and she immediately felt Sousa stiffen, unable to stop the shock that flashed across his face. 

“You mean … after you got your powers?” 

Daisy gave him a small smile. “No. As a baby.” She could feel the tightness starting to creep into her chest, but as though Sousa could tell too, his thumb immediately began to trace along the divots of her knuckles, the most featherlight touch but enough to calm her, just enough. “Hydra destroyed the village in China my parents were living in,” she said, dropping her gaze to focus on her fingers, tangled in his. “They captured all the elders because they wanted to experiment on any Inhumans that might be there. My mother included.” 

“That was Whitehall,” said Sousa. 

Daisy nodded. “He experimented on my mother - basically cut her to pieces, left her for dead. My dad found her and he … he lost his mind. He turned into a monster. He massacred all the Hydra agents and when a SHIELD team arrived at the village to assess the damage and try and help any survivors, he killed them too. Before then though, that team had found me and because they didn’t have any idea what had happened there - and I was the only survivor - they labelled me an 0-8-4. A second SHIELD team arrived and found me in a dead agent’s arms. They took me back to the states, but my dad started hunting them down, looking for me, and so Agent Avery took me to St Agnes Orphanage and set it up so that I’d never stay in the same place for long. No foster family would ever be able to keep me even if they wanted to, I’d never be able to find a home, I’d always move from place to place. It was to keep me safe but … I didn’t know that. As a kid, I just thought … I dunno, that -” 

“You weren’t good enough,” said Sousa, his eyes full of pain and sympathy and Daisy had to look away. 

“Yeah,” she said in a small voice. “I became obsessed with finding out about my past. It’s why I learned to hack and became good with computers. I stopped caring about being sent back from homes and families. I learned what I needed to from school and then dropped out when I was 16.” 

Daisy was used to people being shocked - and a little judgemental - when they found out that she was a high school dropout, but Sousa seemed entirely unfazed, which she supposed was very in character for him. It occurred to her a moment later that Sousa had come from a generation that was used to having to leave school to support their families, or be drafted into the war effort. Of all people, of course he wouldn’t judge. 

“Where did you go?” he asked instead. 

Daisy shrugged. “The street. I knew a few people who let me sleep on their couch and I just … cycled through them all. I uh … I wasn’t doing good though and it … it was lucky, this guy named Miles, he found me and saved my life. Gave me somewhere to live, make sure I was eating and stuff. He got me a shitty diner job and helped me save enough money to buy a run down van. We fixed it up and it gave me something that was mine. It kinda became my home, although I lived with Miles most of the time. He was a hacker too - that’s how he got on my trail - and he helped me get better, recruited me into this organisation called the Rising Tide. It had a good message - freedom of information, of ideas and giving people agency, a voice, the right to know what’s being kept from them by people in power.” She grimaced. “That’s not to say they weren’t also up to some dodgy shit. The Tide had its problems. They were willing to go too far sometimes, and a lot of people in the organisation ended up being sellouts. Including Miles, but I didn’t find that out until after I joined SHIELD.” 

Sousa shook his head, bringing his free hand up to his face to push some of his hair away from his forehead. “Okay, okay, hang on. Let’s … let’s pretend that I’ve actually processed that you were living in a van on the street at like, 16 -” 

“18,” she interrupted. Sousa arched an eyebrow. “I was 18 when I got the van.” 

“18, then,” said Sousa. “How the hell did you go from the Rising Tide to SHIELD? It couldn’t possibly have been a coincidence that SHIELD found you as a baby and you wound up working for them?” 

“It wasn’t,” she said, nodding to the redacted file on her laptop screen. “This document led me there. I only really joined the Tide to gain skills and access to be able to find my parents. All I could ever find was this document, and the whole thing was redacted by SHIELD. I became obsessed with trying to find out why, and when the Tide wanted to send someone in to infiltrate, I started leaking SHIELD information so that they’d track me down and take me in. And they did.” She couldn’t help but smile, eyes roving over the SHIELD logo that she’d known so well, had imprinted so vividly in her mind, since she was basically still a teenager. “ _ Coulson  _ did.” 

Sousa’s eyes softened. “So you were in Coulson’s team from the very start, huh?” 

Daisy couldn’t help but laugh, but there was a small lump in her throat too. “Yeah. I got busted pretty quick - that was when I found out Miles was dirty - but Coulson gave me a second chance. More than that, he made me realise I  _ wanted  _ a second chance. From there, I never looked back. Coulson and May helped me find out what happened to me, to my parents. I found them, over the years. My dad first, then my mom after I got my powers.” 

“You said that didn’t end well.” 

“No,” said Daisy, gripping his hand a little tighter again. “It didn’t. After what Whitehall did … and after losing Kora before that, she wasn’t the same. She was ruthless and unforgiving and … she was willing to hurt anyone. Even me.” 

“I’m sorry Daisy,” said Sousa quietly. 

“My dad saved me from her,” said Daisy. “In the end, I think he found his humanity again. But they couldn’t be sure of who he would be - whether he’d turn violent again - after losing Jiaying and he … he saved so many people by killing the woman he loved. I asked Coulson to use SHIELD tech to wipe his memory. Of me, of Jiaying. It gave him the chance to live a happy life.” 

She couldn’t look at him because she knew exactly what she would see on his face. The pity, the sympathy, the heartbreak. It wasn’t that she didn’t want him to feel it, but it was easier not to see that. Instead, she glanced at her laptop screen again, tapping in a shortcut to reveal all the windows she had open. 

“When I joined the Tide, I wiped the identity that the orphanage gave me,” she said. “When SHIELD fell to Hydra, I did the same thing again, for me and for the team. There wasn’t much about me, but I’d started to let SHIELD have an official identity for me. I’d been working towards becoming an agent, so I had to let them. Until Hydra. I started going by Daisy Johnson - my birth name - after wiping my dad’s memory, kinda because I wanted to honour who my parents had been before the world took everything from them.” (She felt him shift a little, leaning into her in the gentlest little movement of support and encouragement.) “We’ve all existed on paper since then - official government records, SHIELD data once the organisation was rebuilt - but there’s a lot that’s been tainted on all of our names by people trying to take SHIELD down. For you, Flint and Alya, it was making new identities. For the rest of us, it was clearing our names, wiping our records, giving explanations to why we seemed to vanish off the face of the earth several times over the last couple years. And for me … it’s finally creating an identity that’s actually who I am. The whole truth. And it’s kinda terrifying.” 

She forced herself to look at him before the silence settled in and she lost her nerve. There was no pity like she had been afraid of, just a stark, vibrant admiration in his eyes that made Daisy lose her breath a little. 

“What?” she said. 

“You’re just a very incredible human being,” he said softly. 

Daisy bit her lip. “Technically, I’m part alien.” 

Sousa’s eyes widened. “You’re  _ what _ ?” 

Daisy laughed, patting his arm. “It’s okay, it’s a very small part. Promise I don’t have tentacles or laser beams.” 

“Just quake powers,” said Sousa, his fingers sliding with the gentlest touch across the back of her hand and up her wrist, tracing the faint remnants of Daisy’s bruising from a couple weeks ago. His eyes flickered up to meet hers, a small smile playing on his lips. “Very impressive ones, might I add.” 

The echo of their time loop conversation made something warm blossom in Daisy’s chest, something both scarily familiar and terrifyingly unfamiliar to anything Daisy had felt before. That in itself was a whole different set of thoughts she wasn’t even close to prepared to deal with right now, so she shot him a grin and nudged him. “I get it, you have a thing for my powers. I’ll keep that in mind.” 

Colour rose to Sousa’s cheeks and his eyes immediately darted away. “That’s not what I … I didn’t mean that I … I just think that -” When Daisy couldn’t stifle the laugh on the tip of her tongue, Sousa’s embarrassed panic faded into amused exasperation and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh ha-ha.” 

“Sorry,” said Daisy, smirking and not sounding very sorry at all. 

“Uh huh, sure you are,” he said, but the warmth in his voice gave away that he wasn’t frustrated in the slightest. His gaze softened and he reached up, his thumb delicately tracing the almost completely faded scar on Daisy’s cheekbone. “I mean it though Daisy. You’re … extraordinary.” 

The same instinct as before was there, the one that made Daisy want to pull away, to brush it off and make a joke and stop him from looking at her with that look in his eyes that was making her heart race and her skin grow hot under his palm. But there was something about Sousa, about the fact that Daisy knew with absolute certainty that he didn’t feel  _ sorry  _ for her, he just cared, properly and wholeheartedly in the most constant and unwavering way, and about the quiet of the base at this time of the evening and the quiet hum of her laptop and Sousa’s other hand on her knee that made Daisy give in to the  _ other  _ instinct she could feel tugging at her. 

She slid her hand along his jaw, curling her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and gently pulling him towards her. The tiniest little burst of unease erupted in her chest when he hesitated for a second, but he seemed to catch it and before she could pull away, he’d closed the gap between them and pressed his lips to hers. 

It hit her then what was different about him. 

He was safe. While every guy she’d fallen for had in some way made her feel  _ seen _ and  _ wanted  _ in a way that Daisy had always craved so desperately, Sousa was just safe. He didn’t feel like a fleeting moment of attention or a spark that had ignited and was on a timer to go out. He’d crept up on her by just being  _ there _ , by her side without question despite every curveball they’d thrown at him. 

Daisy sighed into his mouth and she felt him smile before taking her face in both of his hands and deepening the kiss in a way that made Daisy’s toes curl and her stomach do an olympic grade somersault until all too soon, he’d pulled back. 

She didn’t realise she was trying to tug him back towards her again until he laughed and curled his hands around hers where they were clutching in his shirt. 

“Not that I’m not a fan of this,” he said, his voice much quieter and lower than usual and doing funny things to Daisy’s stomach again, “but I’m actually far more terrified of your team walking in right now.” 

Daisy couldn’t help herself - she laughed. Maybe it was the stress of the evening, maybe it was the last lingering remnants of the tension both she and Sousa had been carrying when he had first walked in and sat down beside her, or maybe it was brought on by the teasing twinkle in his eyes and the feeling of his hands against her own and the quiet, tempting voice in her head that wanted to suggest they moved to somewhere the team couldn’t interrupt and picked up where they left off. Daisy shook her head fondly, her grin growing when Sousa vaguely attempted to protest, “- what? Wouldn’t you be?”

Daisy rested her forehead on his shoulder for a moment as her shoulders shook, not quite realising what she was doing. (His shirt smelt strongly of his aftershave, and she leant into his space a little more, unable to resist the tug drawing her to him.) When her laughter subsided she looked up, unsurprised to find Sousa’s eyes directly in front of her, sparkling with mirth and delight and a hint of pride that he’d managed to make her smile. 

“Maybe,” she admitted. Sousa raised an eyebrow, and Daisy rolled her eyes, pushing him a little further back with one finger against his chest. “Okay - yeah. No more making out anywhere the team could interrupt us.”

“Well - tonight, at least.” Sousa’s smile was soft, and Daisy knew hers matched. He gave her shoulder a nudge and then returned his attention to the laptop. “You going to keep working on this?” 

Earlier, before Sousa had walked in, she’d almost had enough of it. The bubbling pit of nerves at the prospect of having to build an identity for herself that was real and more permanent than any of the others had been verging on overwhelming, and although she knew that after creating hers she’d be done, she’d been ready to close the laptop and give up for the night.

As if he had followed her train of thought, Sousa lightly nudged her shoulder. “I can’t promise I’ll be any help, but I’ve got nowhere else to be. You know. If you want some company.”

To anyone else - even May or Coulson - Daisy would’ve said no. The idea of piecing together all the fragments of who she was - who she had been once and who she was now - had always been something she wanted to do alone, to not let anybody else into because it had been the only thing that had ever been  _ hers  _ her entire life. She’d never  _ wanted  _ to let anybody else into it before. 

Until now. 

“As long as you don’t laugh at the embarrassing photos of me,” she said. 

“No promises, but I’ll do my best.” Before she could swat him, he lifted his arm to give her room to settle into his side and she smiled into his chest. He stayed still and quiet, watching her sort through the documents littering her laptop screen and offering that tiny, reassuring stable comfort of company that Daisy hadn’t realised she needed. 

If having Daniel Sousa around came with getting to wind the days down with him, quiet and muted and safe and calm, Daisy was pretty sure evenings were going to become her favourite time of day. 

  
  
  



End file.
